Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh announced the appointments to his Columbus Circle Action Group. The 23-member group will make recommendations to Mayor Walsh regarding the creation of an all-season, education and learning site at the downtown park space that has been home to a statue of Christopher Columbus since 1934. The group’s charge will include recommendations on the presence of the monument in the Circle.
The action group includes stakeholders representing a wide range of views on the issue of Columbus commemoration and the presence of the monument in Columbus Circle: the Onondaga Nation, the Italian American community, New Americans, multiple communities of color, faith-based organizations, local government, and the Interfaith Works Dialogue Circles on Columbus convened by Mayor Walsh in 2018-19. Participants are:
Haji Adan Syracuse Refugee and Immigrant Self-Empowerment (RISE)
Pastor H. Bernard Alex Victory Temple Fellowship Church
Yaya Delgado Henninger High School Graduate (trained in Action Group methodology)
Hon. Joe Driscoll Syracuse Common Councilor
Imam Mohammed ElFiki Islamic Society of Central New York
Ocesa Keaton Greater Syracuse H.O.P.E.
Greg Loh Office of the Mayor
Betty Lyons Onondaga Nation Member
Rex Lyons Onondaga Nation Member
Fr. David McCallum, S.J. Le Moyne College
Hon. Rita Paniagua Syracuse Common Councilor
Richard Pietrafesa Italian American
Nick Pirro Columbus Monument Association
Lisa Sacco Italian American/Mohawk Tribal Member
Isaura Severino Office of the Mayor
Joe Romano Italian American
Fr. John Rose Roman Catholic Priest (ret.)
Clifford Ryan OG’s Against Violence
Asa Shenandoah Onondaga Nation Member
Cindy Squillace NOON
Ralph Torillo, Sr. Italian American
Gregg Tripoli Onondaga Historical Association
Michael Vavonese Italian American
“The time for action is now. I want to thank each of these individuals for committing to the hard work ahead. They are well-respected people in their spheres of influence, and their participation speaks volumes about the importance of this work,” said Mayor Walsh. “We have no illusion that this will be easy. Healing is hard work. I am heartened that I will be able to implement a path forward knowing that all voices will have had the opportunity to be heard. The education and learning site we create and the process we use to get there can be a national model for dealing with these painful and complicated matters of history that impact us today.”
The group will begin meeting later this month under the facilitation and guidance of Interfaith Works, a Syracuse non-profit organization. The Mayor has asked for a report from the group before the end of summer.
Three different Dialogue Circles met between September 2018 and July 2019. The groups met for over a month, studying differing viewpoints about Columbus, the roles that Native Americans and Italian immigrants played in American history and in our Central New York community, and why this issue is so complex today. At the conclusion of the circles, Interfaith Works prepared a report with recommendations from the dialogue.
The report also included recommendations to conduct a community education campaign; modify the existing monument; add an additional Native American monument; involve Native Americans in current Columbus celebrations; as well as to change the Columbus Day holiday to Indigenous Peoples Day or to add a separate Indigenous Peoples Day. All recommendations were not endorsed by all participants.
Mayor Walsh hosted a “Common Ground Forum” in September 2019 which brought together Dialogue Circle participants holding widely different viewpoints for further discussion of solutions. He also participated in a three-hour Kairos Blanket Exercise, an interactive educational program on the history of Indigenous peoples in North America.
Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, over 1,000 miles away from Syracuse. The native folks there were called the Taino people. They had it rough, no question about it, but they weren’t the native folks in Syracuse.
As such I fail to see a reasonable answer for why native folks from our area would be upset about native mistreatment a world away. If that’s their position then there are undoubtedly worse mistreatments to be upset about. Native folks all over the Americas were mistreated by colonists and other native folks for that matter. That happened throughout history.
To demonize Columbus and his crew is silly. We should consider the feat that they achieved. They were undoubtedly some of the bravest explorers of all time.
Edit: my apologies if this double posted. I pressed the back button several times
Columbus made landfall in the Bahamas, over 1,000 miles away from Syracuse. The native folks there were called the Taino people. They had it rough, no question about it, but they weren’t the native folks in Syracuse.
As such I fail to see a reasonable answer for why native folks from our area would be upset about native mistreatment a world away. If that’s their position then there are undoubtedly worse mistreatments to be upset about. Native folks all over the Americas were mistreated by colonists and other native folks for that matter. That happened throughout history.
To demonize Columbus and his crew is silly. We should consider the feat that they achieved. They were undoubtedly some of the bravest explorers of all time.